Wednesday, October 22, 2008

What will $10 buy today?

For me, $10 bought some pretty cool books at my local Friends of the Library book sale. A friend suggested I start posting some of my cool thrift-store finds, so here's the first post in this vein.

I stopped at the book sale on my way home, ignoring my co-workers' advice that I should go home and rest my sprained ankle. What? And miss good loot? Not on your life. Besides, my ankle's only as big as a baseball. It's not like it's anything serious.

The risk to my personal health paid off because I scored a number of books, including these standouts that I plan to use parts of in crafty collages:

I bought the "Annette" book because I couldn't resist the charming aqua and pink color scheme. I mean, look at how the pink in the illustrations pops against the turquoise on the edges of the pages!

And it's hard for me to resist bird books. For one, my Grandma Gerry had a thing for birds. I remember how the guest room my sister and I stayed in had an Audubon print over each of the neatly made twin beds. My friend and fellow blogger, Heidi, also loves bird books, so I'm always on the lookout for goodies I can share with her.

The "Menaboni's Birds" book has large and beautiful full-color plates. Check out this beautiful boat-tailed grackle:

And the three-volume "Birds of Massachusetts and Other New England States" set is just amazing. Not only is it a complete set that dates back to 1929, it's also chock full of beautiful black-and-white illustrations and color plates. Seems almost a shame to cut it up for collage. I could always photocopy the images I want to use, but like most artists, I'll probably never get around to it.

But anyhow, here are a few of the cool images from the book:

And for the record, I also scored a pair of crutches for $3 from the thrift store next door to the book sale. My co-workers insist that I should "rest my ankle." I checked WebMD once I got home. Apparently if I can walk on it without pain, then that's a good sign and I don't need crutches. But hey, now I have them in case I ever need them.